Sunday, March 5, 2017

Sunday Rerun: The Steal Industry

Crime Scene footage

Crime Beat: December 14, 2001. It was dark in Los Angeles when actress Winona "Sticky Fingers" Ryder was arrested at the Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. Employees of the tony store said they saw her put $4,760 worth of clothes and accessories into her bag. There was video of her tearing the security tags off of the merchandise and placing the "free" stuff in a bag with items she had paid for. Facing charges of grand theft, Ryder hired a mouthpiece named Mark Geragos, who promptly said, "It will become clear that there was no theft here. Ms. Ryder had no intent of depriving anybody of any property."You may rest assured of this truth: if I ever lose my grip and go into a store and shove as many Jackass T-shirts, Bing Crosby CDs and cans of wasabi peas as I can into a sack, and try to leave Cheap-E-Mart without paying...and there are 17 customers and employees all saying they saw me pulling off the caper...if there is HD video from 13 different cameras, none further than 3 feet away from me, all showing me furtively secreting the goods in a false-bottom bag...if a priest, a rabbi and a minister were headed into a bar next door, saw me purloin the items and immediately offered me absolution, forgiveness and a raffle ticket for a new Buick in exchange for my confession...if a courtroom sketch artist had been in the store and immediately pulled out a sketch pad and pencil to make a crude charcoal rendering of the crime in progress...if the heavens open to reveal Moses standing above me with two stone tablets in his hands, and he is pointing to Commandment #8 and shaking his head at me...and if a little urchin appears on the sidewalk with a tear running down his grubby face as he wails, "Say it ain't so, Mark!"...it will not fail that my lawyer will plead me "Guilty as hell, your honor!" and I will descend into a lowly place at the Ironbar Hilton.

Ryder (l) and Jacobs

And...One of the items she ripped off that day almost 14 years ago was a $760 Marc Jacobs sweater.And...Four days ago, Jacobs, who writes "fashion designer" in that little "occupation" space in the income tax form, said that he has hired Kleptosaurus Rex Ryder as the face of his line's new beauty campaign.So to all the lovely women I know who want to be models, this is not how I recommend you get into it. I hope he pays her in free sweaters.